Disgruntled Eastern Cape ANC members sang and danced outside Luthuli House in Johannesburg on Monday demanding to speak to secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
The group is protesting over the formation of a committee to oversee the upcoming local government elections in the Alfred Nzo municipality.
The protesters had travelled the previous day from communities in the Eastern Cape and arrived outside the ruling party's headquarters at 5am.
Alfred Nzo is one of three ANC regions which were disbanded as part of re-alignment ahead of next year's local government elections. The region lodged appeals over the re-alignment of party structures following demarcation of municipal boundaries.
Protesters believe the new Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) is to blame for the reconfiguration but ANC spokesperson in the Eastern Cape, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, said the PEC was simply implementing a decision which was taken in 2007.
This reconfiguration has also resulted in a new Interim Regional Committee (IRC) which will co-ordinate the upcoming local elections in the Alfred Nzo region and will also recommend the appointment of mayors into municipalities.
“The response we have had is that the secretary general is attending to the matter and is going down to the Eastern Cape,” said leader of the protesters, Sipho Tshekela.
Tshekela said the delegation requested that one of the two former IRC chairpersons be appointed chairman of the new committee.
Qoboshiyane said the ANC had hoped to announce on Sunday that indeed a former chair of the IRC had been invited, and had accepted, the position of chairperson.
But instead fights broke out among various ANC faction members and the meeting was cancelled. They disrupted the meeting allowing “things to fall into a state of anarchy” and so the announcement could not be made. “We need those people to come back from Johannesburg and face discipline in this province.”
The protesters say they will not return to the Eastern Cape until members from the ANC National Executive Committee members speak to them.
Should the IRC not be implemented correctly, “elections will be disrupted”, they said. -
Sapa